c4 media

Applying the Internet of Things for rich conference feedback

Conferences are ideal for in-person interactions, but when it comes to the personal touch, it can be a struggle among the crowds. Conference organizers C4Media wanted to understand individual attendees in a way that would be responsive and personalized. What did individual attendees feel about the panel that they had just attended—and was there a way to make that feedback part of their conference profile?

Mobile wasn’t up to the challenge of getting such high-touch, actionable feedback. C4Media had experimented with a well-crafted, personalized mobile app for voting and feedback after a panel. Even with the offer of free T-shirts as an incentive to vote, the organizers only saw a 60% participation rate.

Wi-Fi posed another problem: connections regularly error out due to the burden of so many people trying to connect. It’s also extremely expensive for conference providers, making it a costly proposition.

Enter new technical infrastructure, coupled with hardware, all brought together through iterative agile methodologies that solved the problem and brought new technologies into the present. The C4Media Voting Box offered both personalization and on average, a participation rate of over 90%.

Below, find out how C4Media and ThoughtWorks tapped into the Internet of Things to solve the problem of rich personal engagement at QCons all around the world.